Chapter XVII.—On the Saying of the Saviour, “All that Came Before Me Were Thieves and Robbers.”19851985John x. 8.

But, say they, it is written, “All who were
before the Lord’s advent are thieves and robbers.” All,
then, who are in the Word (for it is these that were previous to the
incarnation of the Word) are understood generally. But the
319prophets, being sent and inspired by
the Lord, were not thieves, but servants. The Scripture accordingly says,
“Wisdom sent her servants, inviting with loud proclamation to a
goblet of wine.”19861986Prov. ix. 3.

But philosophy, it is said, was not sent by the
Lord, but came stolen, or given by a thief. It was then some power or
angel that had learned something of the truth, but abode not in it, that
inspired and taught these things, not without the Lord’s knowledge,
who knew before the constitution of each essence the issues of futurity,
but without His prohibition.

For the theft which reached men then, had some
advantage; not that he who perpetrated the theft had utility in his eye,
but Providence directed the issue of the audacious deed to utility. I
know that many are perpetually assailing us with the allegation, that not
to prevent a thing happening, is to be the cause of it happening. For
they say, that the man who does not take precaution against a theft,
or does not prevent it, is the cause of it: as he is the cause of
the conflagration who has not quenched it at the beginning; and the
master of the vessel who does not reef the sail, is the cause of the
shipwreck. Certainly those who are the causes of such events are punished
by the law. For to him who had power to prevent, attaches the blame of
what happens. We say to them, that causation is seen in doing, working,
acting; but the not preventing is in this respect inoperative. Further,
causation attaches to activity; as in the case of the shipbuilder in
relation to the origin of the vessel, and the builder in relation to the
construction of the house. But that which does not prevent is separated
from what takes place. Wherefore the effect will be accomplished;
because that which could have prevented neither acts nor prevents. For
what activity does that which prevents not exert? Now their assertion
is reduced to absurdity, if they shall say that the cause of the wound
is not the dart, but the shield, which did not prevent the dart from
passing through; and if they blame not the thief, but the man who did
not prevent the theft. Let them then say, that it was not Hector that
burned the ships of the Greeks, but Achilles; because, having the power
to prevent Hector, he did not prevent him; but out of anger (and it
depended on himself to be angry or not) did not keep back the fire, and
was a concurring cause. Now the devil, being possessed of free-will,
was able both to repent and to steal; and it was he who was the author
of the theft, not the Lord, who did not prevent him. But neither was
the gift hurtful, so as to require that prevention should intervene.

But if strict accuracy must be employed in dealing
with them, let them know, that that which does not prevent what we
assert to have taken place in the theft, is not a cause at all; but
that what prevents is involved in the accusation of being a cause. For
he that protects with a shield is the cause of him whom he protects not
being wounded; preventing him, as he does, from being wounded. For the
demon of Socrates was a cause, not by not preventing, but by exhorting,
even if (strictly speaking) he did not exhort. And neither praises
nor censures, neither rewards nor punishments, are right, when the
soul has not the power of inclination and disinclination, but evil is
involuntary. Whence he who prevents is a cause; while he who prevents
not judges justly the soul’s choice. So in no respect is God the
author of evil. But since free choice and inclination originate sins,
and a mistaken judgment sometimes prevails, from which, since it is
ignorance and stupidity, we do not take pains to recede, punishments
are rightly inflicted. For to take fever is involuntary; but when one
takes fever through his own fault, from excess, we blame him. Inasmuch,
then, as evil is involuntary,—for no one prefers evil as evil; but
induced by the pleasure that is in it, and imagining it good, considers it
desirable;—such being the case, to free ourselves from ignorance,
and from evil and voluptuous choice, and above all, to withhold our
assent from those delusive phantasies, depends on ourselves. The devil
is called “thief and robber;” having mixed false prophets
with the prophets, as tares with the wheat. “All, then, that
came before the Lord, were thieves and robbers;” not absolutely
all men, but all the false prophets, and all who were not properly sent
by Him. For the false prophets possessed the prophetic name dishonestly,
being prophets, but prophets of the liar. For the Lord says, “Ye
are of your father the devil; and the lusts of your father ye will do. He
was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because
there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own;
for he is a liar, and the father of it.”19871987John viii. 44.

But among the lies, the false prophets also told some
true things. And in reality they prophesied “in an ecstasy,”
as19881988[The devil can quote Scripture. Hermas, p. 27, this volume. See,
on this important chapter, Elucidation XIII.,
infra.] the servants of the apostate. And the Shepherd,
the angel of repentance, says to Hermas, of the false prophet: “For
he speaks some truths. For the devil fills him with his own spirit, if
perchance he may be able to cast down any one from what is right.”
All things, therefore, are dispensed from heaven for good, “that
by the Church may be made known the manifold wisdom of God, according
320to the
eternal foreknowledge,19891989 Clement reads πρόγνωσιν
for πρόθεσιν.
which He purposed in Christ.”19901990Eph. iii. 10, 11. Nothing withstands God:
nothing opposes Him: seeing He is Lord and omnipotent. Further, the
counsels and activities of those who have rebelled, being partial,
proceed from a bad disposition, as bodily diseases from a bad
constitution, but are guided by universal Providence to a salutary
issue, even though the cause be productive of disease. It is accordingly
the greatest achievement of divine Providence, not to allow the evil,
which has sprung from voluntary apostasy, to remain useless, and for no
good, and not to become in all respects injurious. For it is the work
of the divine wisdom, and excellence, and power, not alone to do good
(for this is, so to speak, the nature of God, as it is of fire to warm
and of light to illumine), but especially to ensure that what happens
through the evils hatched by any, may come to a good and useful issue,
and to use to advantage those things which appear to be evils, as also
the testimony which accrues from temptation.

There is then in philosophy, though stolen as
the fire by Prometheus, a slender spark, capable of being fanned
into flame, a trace of wisdom and an impulse from God. Well, be it
so that “the thieves and robbers” are the philosophers
among the Greeks, who from the Hebrew prophets before the coming of
the Lord received fragments of the truth, not with full knowledge, and
claimed these as their own teachings, disguising some points, treating
others sophistically by their ingenuity, and discovering other things,
for perchance they had “the spirit of perception.”19911991Ex. xxviii. 3.
Aristotle, too, assented to Scripture, and declared sophistry to
have stolen wisdom, as we intimated before. And the apostle says,
“Which things we speak, not in the words which man’s
wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth.”199219921 Cor. ii. 13.
For of the prophets it is said, “We have all received of His
fulness,”19931993John
i. 16. that is, of Christ’s. So that the prophets are
not thieves. “And my doctrine is not Mine,” saith the Lord,
“but the Father’s which sent me.” And of those who
steal He says: “But he that speaketh of himself, seeketh his own
glory.”19941994John vii. 16,
18. Such are the Greeks, “lovers of their own selves,
and boasters.”199519952 Tim. iii. 2. Scripture, when it speaks of these as wise,
does not brand those who are really wise, but those who are wise in
appearance.